Dux open a casement onto three completely unfamiliar tonal-melodic
piano concertos from Iron Curtain Poland. Frankly the rootedly
tonal language came as something of a surprise. I was expecting
something more severe. In fact all three works are entertaining
and accessible. They are also bound together by the principles
shared by these three composers who together came to be known
as 'Group 49'. Let's take the Serocki
for a start. Like the other two concertos it is in three movements.
The music is lucidly orchestrated and finds a realm somewhere
between the lyricism of Ravel, the hard-gleam of Prokofiev and
the visceral rhythmic Petrushka-like grunt of Stravinsky.
The writing is catchily exciting in the outer movements and smilingly
sensitive yet chilly in the Lento 'delicatamente e cantabile',
an expressive marking which gives you a faithful idea of the mood
and accent. There were a couple of moments when I thought of the
John Ireland piano concerto too although Serocki's writing is
more virile and driven.

Baird is almost as distant from us as Serocki. We might
recall him from a trio of long-gone Olympia OCD discs: OCD 312:
Epiphany Music for Orchestra (1963); Elegy for Orchestra
(1973); Symphony no. 3 (1969); Four Love Sonnets for
baritone and chamber orchestra (1956); Concerto Lugubre for
viola and orchestra (1975); OCD 326: Psychodrama for orchestra
(1972); Tomorrow (opera) for mezzo, baritone, bass, speaker
& orchestra (1966) and OCD 388: various. His Colas Breugnon
suite for flute and orchestra (EMI Matrix disc CDM5 65418-2
and later EMI Classics Double Fforte) dates from four years after the
Piano Concerto. The concerto is reserved but only by comparison
with the flamboyance and occasional syncopation of the Serocki.

We may well know Krenz's name as a conductor but he also
wrote the film score for Kanal, part of Wajda's Warsaw
trilogy. Krenz's Concertino leans toward the eager brightness
of Poulenc - at one moment Stravinskian neo-classical and at another
candidly romantic. There's even a Tippett-style rapture in the
string writing. Most striking though are the remarkably heart-stilling
and tranced strings-and-celesta passages in the Andante sostenuto.
At times it is as if Panufnik - surely an influence? - had been
toying with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
This collection can be compared with the slightly more unyielding
CD Accord anthology of three other Polish piano concertos as
reviewed here in 2003. This is a well documented
and excitingly recorded collection which should appeal to the
adventurous among you - at least those with tastes that lean away
from the feral avant-garde.

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